


What are you hiding, Peter?

by hockeylass



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Coney Island, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Peter needs to get better at this part, What happened after the final fight, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-22 23:42:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19139218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hockeylass/pseuds/hockeylass
Summary: I know there's been a few fics about what happened after the plane crash - this is my take on it!





	What are you hiding, Peter?

**Author's Note:**

> UPDATED - following a very constructive comment from a reader (thank you!!) I've added a little more to this tale...
> 
>  
> 
> I’ve included actual parts of the movie in... but to me, there's no way Peter wouldn't still be nursing some injuries two days later, and there's no way if Tony knew what Peter had actually gone through he'd have been as flippant as he was at the compound. Especially when you think back at Tony's reaction at seeing Peter out cold on the airport runway in Civil War. 
> 
> Anyways, here it is!

Resting against the flagpole atop the Cyclone rollercoaster, Peter looked down at the beach below, the carnage he and The Vulture had caused — how much worse it could have been.

From his viewpoint, he could hear the shocked screams and shouts of the public, and some brave souls trying to get closer to see if anyone could be saved, of course, he knew there was no-one else there. He heard the wall of sirens approaching though and that was the main thing. Once they arrived, he’d know it was all taken care of, and then Mr Stark would know he’d at least tried to make up for the ferry incident.

There was a small corner of his brain which looked at the charred remains of the plane, Toomes sitting webbed up in the middle of it all, and struggled to believe he had been a part of it.

But he could recount every single second, it would be tattooed on his brain forever. The second time he’d ever been on a plane - the first time he’d been ON a plane. Crushed by a warehouse ceiling, almost blended by a Jet engine, steering the plane past the built-up coastline, surviving the plane crash, then being beaten to a pulp by Toomes. Not to mention then watching the lunatic almost kill himself in the quest for alien tech. He successfully saved him from impending death, so that was something.

Peter’s thoughts were interrupted by a wave of pain as he mindlessly stretched out his leg. He’d been propping up his arm on his knee, holding it steady in the one place he didn’t feel abject agony. He was pretty sure he’d torn his rotator cuff, probably dislocated it at the shoulder at some point, pulled some ligaments. It felt like it was on fire. 

Stretching out his leg lowered his injured arm, causing a huge flare of pain in his shoulder, not to mention a dull sickening ache in his hip which had also taken a serious hit. He daren’t think about the bruising.

The worst of the injuries were the puncture wounds he got from Toomes’ giant crampons. They pulsed with pain, and he could feel the blood steadily trickling down his chest and sides.

Sleep pulled at him like nothing he’d ever felt before, it was deep exhaustion, embedded in every fibre of his being. He was just about to give in to it when he saw the fire engines arrive and with them the familiar black Audi belonging to Happy. 

Tiredness was replaced by a wave of relief. He could go home.

He knew it wouldn’t be a swing in the park, but it was a tougher journey than even he’d anticipated. His left side was generally a mess — swinging with one arm was virtually impossible — so he took to limping along rooftops, and using his right arm to swing between them. It meant taking a long route back, picking buildings with shorter distances between them. Eventually, he saw a knight in shining armour, the subway train travelling back up towards Queens. He landed on top of the front carriage with a dull thud, his usual grace starkly absent. The pain was almost more than he could bear now, coursing through his veins, pounding in his head - concussion, probably - throbbing in his wounds, aching in every joint. He struggled to focus, so much so he almost missed his stop.

Now almost midnight, Peter hid in the darkness, stumbling the three blocks back to his apartment. The final hurdle was getting back in the house without making a sound, knowing May was in and probably asleep. 

Usually, he’d climb up the side wall, crawl in the usual way, through the sash window and along the ceiling and slowly lower himself down onto the floor in silence. This time, the climb was slow and laboured and he came through the window clumsily, almost smashing the glass with his trailing foot. An old tee was hanging on the post of his bunk bed, which he grabbed and shoved in his mouth before he could yelp in pain. Instead of landing on the floor, he chose to lower himself onto the top bunk. There were no pillows, sheets or blankets but he didn’t mind. He could stay there until morning, he thought, as exhaustion won.

\------------

They say it’s darkest before the dawn. 

Four hours later, Peter discovered what that meant. He came round to pitch black, and for a moment he wondered if he’d lost his sight, but a few blinks proved him otherwise, to his huge relief. He felt dreadful. Worse than he’d ever felt before, worse than the bite, he reckoned. There wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t scream at him in pain. He contemplated moving and realised that wasn’t an option, his ribs shooting pain through his abdomen as he lifted his head from the mattress. 

One thing he’d learned from dealing with injuries was the power of breathing, focusing on the breaths, making them full and regular, concentrating on the very act of it. He’d trained himself to almost meditate through the practice of breathing, and in the past, it had enabled him to find the strength to clean his cuts and strap up sprained limbs. He spent a good 20 minutes regulating his breathing, laying on his back, thinking of his next move. Getting the suit off was probably a priority, he figured.

Remembering to maintain the pattern of breathing as he decided to move and slowly undress was virtually impossible. Removing the suit from his left side first took an age, before tackling the lesser of the two evils, his right side. Once out of the now tattered and smoky outfit, he stuffed it into the very far corner of the bunk bed where he knew it was out of May’s line of vision. He sluggishly shifted a couple of old cuddly toys that had been discarded on the top bunk over the top of the suit for good measure. Mind you, as the moon began to get ready for the new day, the milky light through the window revealed a new challenge - getting rid of the blood that had seeped onto the mattress. He’d worry about that later.

Right now, he had to get cleaned up. 

When he woke up the second time, he was on the bottom bunk again, curled up on his right side huddled under covers, and feeling cold. The pain was still there in force, his hair drenched in sweat and stuck to his forehead. He couldn’t remember how he got there, he couldn’t remember anything past shoving the suit in the corner. 

As he struggled to gather his thoughts and roll over onto his back, he let out a pained cry. Then, he heard the bedroom door creak open.

“Peter?” May asked quietly, approaching the bed. “Sweetie? There’s blood on the bathroom floor, and... Oh my god, Peter what happened!!”

As Peter prized open his eyes all he could see from his blurry vision was May hovering over his face. Then he felt her hands tracing the bruises on his face. Not that it would be easy, but he had to think fast.

“Think someone spiked my drink,” he mumbled. “Fell down the stairs.”

“Oh Peter that’s so awful,” May said, knowing not to ask further questions. “Can I get you anything?”

“Water,” he mumbled. “Th’nks.”

By the time she returned, he’d already fallen back to sleep. 

**Two days later**

While the bruises had faded significantly and all but vanished on his face (thank god!), Peter had to get back to school Monday morning and mask the fact that inside, he was still a mess. He’d spent the previous day practising walking around his bedroom without a limp, strapped up his shoulder as best he could and cleaned out the wounds with what was left of May’s first aid kit. But one of the puncture wounds, the one nearest his collarbone by his injured shoulder, was not healing like the others. He couldn’t understand why given how he normally healed after cuts and scrapes and even broken bones. Not only was it still seeping blood, but it was also quite warm and red. So as well as not healing, it was probably getting worse. 

With neither he or May having the cash to go get some antibiotics - and no guarantee they would even work with his genetic make-up - all he could do was hope that regular cleaning would see it heal up eventually. 

“Dude are you OK? I’ve been worried!” Ned said, meeting Peter at his locker as he did every morning. 

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” he said as he turned around. Ned couldn’t help but notice his friend’s grey pallor, the dark rings under his eyes. 

“Are you sure because you look a bit sick? You didn’t get hurt, did you? The plane crash was all over the news, dude. There’s no way you could emerge from that without something going on. You know you can tell me, Pete.”

“I said I’m fine, Ned.” Peter shut down the conversation.

“Ok….” Ned took the hint as they walked down the corridor. “It looked so insane though. That whole… like, it was just crazy. He, he was just like ‘Zzzzz’ and you were like ‘ah!’. And then I just hit him with the ‘pew’. It was so, oh, my God—”

“You saved me, it was awesome,” he said quietly, spotting a distraught Liz with her mother at the end of the corridor. Ned put a hand on Peter’s shoulder, thankfully his right one, as touching the left one would see him lose his mask and reveal the pain he was in.

Peter ran over to Liz. He had to make amends.

“Hey Liz. Liz, look I’m so sorry.”

“You say that a lot, what are you sorry for this time?” she said, angrily. “The dance? That was a pretty crappy thing to do.”

“Well yeah, but I… I mean, your dad. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. If there’s anything I can do to help?”

“I guess we’re moving to Oregon. Mum says it’s nice there, so that’s cool. Anyway, Dad doesn’t want us here during the trial, so…”

Peter didn’t know what to say.

“Bye, Peter. Whatever’s going with you, I hope you figure it out.”

It hurt him to see her hurt as she walked away. He meant what he said, she didn’t deserve this. He hoped she would be OK, though he knew it would be a long time before she could move on from it. 

As the day progressed, not only did Peter replay the exchange with Liz through his mind, agonising over her tears and sadness, but he also felt steadily worse. The wound in his shoulder throbbed incessantly, and he knew blood was seeping through the crude dressing he’d put on it before leaving his room that morning. He had packed a replacement, but finding somewhere to change it without anyone seeing would be a bigger problem. He decided to do it in decathlon practice after school, duck out while no one suspected and make the most of the empty restroom areas.

By the time decathlon practice came around, he felt wretched. He could feel the sweat making his clothes stick to him, and knew he couldn’t take his jacket off else people would see. Unfortunately, sitting opposite was the most observant person he knew, MJ, and she looked at him with a hint of concern. “You ok Parker? Looks like you’ve run a marathon.”

“Yeah fine just had to sprint over here, didn’t want to be late,” Peter retorted. She looked at him cynically and he hoped she wouldn’t probe further. Just after she was announced as the new team captain - that he was pleased about - he decided it would be a good chance to take a look at the wound. 

He quickly got up, forgetting to ask permission of Mr Harrington, not that he’d probably notice his absence anyway.

“Hey, where are you going?” 

Peter stopped, stunned. “Um…I, I gotta go.”

“What are you hiding, Peter?”

Shit.

“Um…”

Shit, shit...shit….

“I’m just kidding,” she said, turning the pages of her book. “I don’t care, bye.”

He breathed a huge sigh of relief as he made his escape.

As he walked down the corridor, heavy-limbed and suddenly feeling a wave of nausea, his phone dinged.

“Meet me in the bathroom.” the text said, from an unknown number. It had to be Happy, he thought, and suddenly the nausea got worse as he realised a) he wouldn’t be able to change the dressing as he needed to, b) he’d have to hide how shit he felt in front of him and c) most importantly, he thought he was going to get the biggest telling off of his life.

He walked in cautiously. “Hey Happy. What, uh… what are you doing here?”

“I really owe you one,” Happy said, sincerely. “I don’t know what I would do without this job.”

Peter was taken aback by the statement. “Um.. so how long have you been here?”

“Long enough to be awkward. Boss wants to see you.”

“Is he here too?” Peter’s stomach turned.

“In the toilet, no he’s upstate?”

“Upstate? Like, upstate-upstate?”

“Yeah, let’s go.” And with that Happy walked past him and out the door. 

Great, so now he was about to finally go to the Avengers compound, see Mr Stark again, get another massive telling off, but maybe have a chance to properly apologise and hopefully - just hopefully be forgiven. But it would all happen while he felt like death warmed up. This was not going how he had hoped.

Happy couldn’t fail to notice how quiet the usually chirpy Peter Parker was in the back of the car. He checked his rear view mirror often, looking at the teenager staring absently out the window, his pale face, a slight sheen of sweat on his brow and top lip.

“You ok kid?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Only you look a little sick.”

“Yeah think I ate something dodgy at lunch. I’ll be fine.”

“Ok well if you feel any worse or you wanna throw up just say because I don’t want the cleaning bill docked from my wages, you know?”

Peter just nodded.

The ride was silent the rest of the way. 

When they arrived at the compound, Peter couldn’t help but be impressed with the sight of the building and the Quinjet making its way to an unknown mission.

“You don’t see that every day,” Happy said, trying to make conversation with the boy, who until this point hadn’t broken from his silent and distant mood.

Before Peter had the chance to respond (assuming he was going to), Mr Stark appeared. Peter straightened his back and did his best not to show any hint of how he really felt.

“There they are,” exclaimed the billionaire. “How was the ride up?”

Peter watched as Tony ordered Happy to step back and allow him to speak with Peter alone. He then walked over to Peter and fist-bumped him in the right shoulder before putting his arm around his injured left shoulder and chest. Peter hoped Mr Stark hadn’t noticed the sharp intake of breath of the flinch he was unsuccessful in suppressing. The way it felt, he may as well have stabbed him. Pain shot down his arm and across his chest towards his throat, a wave of nausea creeping up as he felt the wound jostle and weep under the old bandages.

“Sorry I took your suit. I mean, you had it coming. Actually, it turns out it was the perfect sort of tough-love moment that you needed, right? To urge you on, right? Wouldn’t you think? Don’t you think?” 

Peter didn’t know how to respond. He wanted to explain “Yeah, yeah, I guess.”

“Let’s just say it was.”

“Mr Stark, I really —”

Tony interrupted again as he led the boy down to the end of the room. “You screwed the pooch hard. Big time. But then you did the right thing. Took the dog to the free clinic, you raised the hybrid puppies... Alright, not my best analogy. 

“I was wrong about you. I think, with a little more mentoring, you could be a real asset to the team.”

Peter was stunned. “To the... To the team?”

“Yeah. Anyway…”, he pointed at a large set of double doors. “There’s about 50 reporters behind that door. Real ones, not bloggers.”

As he spoke, two other doors opened, revealing a hybrid puppy. It was a version of his beloved suit, but it looked like Iron Man’s. Nano tech… billions of dollars worth of suit. This could not be real, Peter thought. This wound had caused him hallucinations, surely?

“When you’re ready... Why don’t you try that on? And I’ll introduce the world to the newest official member of the Avengers — Spider-Man.”

Peter chuckled as Tony proudly presented his work. “Yeah! Give that a look.”

Peter stood there, dumbfounded.

“So, after the press conference, Happy will show you to your room, your new quarters.”

But Peter stopped the man’s idle chat with Happy about Vision’s activities. He wasn’t ready for this. What happened with the warehouse, the plane was too much. Plus his shoulder was telling him he wasn’t, and he certainly didn’t want to reveal anything to his mentor.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark. But I’m good.”

“You’re good? Good? How are you good?

“Well, I mean, I’m... I’d rather just stay on the ground for a little while. Friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. Somebody’s got to look out for the little guy, right?”

“You turning me down? You better think about this. Look at that. Look at me. Last chance, yes or no?”

“No.” 

“Okay. It’s kind of a Springsteen-y, working-class hero vibe that I dig. Uh, Happy will take you home. Yeah?”

Peter shook hands with his mentor and went to the car just as Happy had asked. He was eternally grateful as he could feel himself get more and more dizzy and hot, and sitting sounded like a great idea. But as he walked away he had to make sure of one thing.

“That was a test, right? There’s, uh, nobody back there?”

“Yes, you passed. All right, skedaddle there, young buck.”

“Thank you, Mr Stark. Thank you.”

Niceties done, Peter made his way as quickly as his failing legs would take him back to the Audi. He practically fell into the back — not before puking in the bushes on the way out — and tried to control his breathing. He did not feel good. If he could just get home, he’d be OK. 

Without him even realising, he passed out.

\---------

Happy got in the front seat and turned on the engine. “Where to then kid, do you wanna get a burger on the way back?”

Silence. 

“Kid?”

Happy looked into the rear mirror and his stomach fell to the floor. The boy was out cold, slumped sidewards along the seat. “Shit! Peter?”

He quickly got out the front seat and opened the back door, gently tapping the teen’s face to try to wake him. He was drenched in sweat and practically radiating heat, but visibly shivering. He scooped the boy up and ran back into the compound as fast as his ageing knees would allow him, leaving the engine running. 

Getting back into the main lobby, he laid Peter out on one of the upholstered benches by the window and huffed and puffed his way right into the press conference. He didn’t care if it caused a scene, there was something more important.

“- Yes we’ve waited long enough but I’m delighted to say we’ll be marrying in the spring next year,” Tony announced to the room, cameras flashing and Pepper beaming a huge smile.

“Tony!” Happy shouted from the back of the room. Tony looked right across at his friend and immediately knew something was wrong.

“Excuse me I’ll be right back to take questions,” he said, kissing Pepper on the lips and giving the morning papers their cover shot.

He walked briskly to the back. “What’s going on?” he whispered under his breath.

Happy couldn’t hide his worried expression. “It’s Pete, Tony… he… “

Tony didn’t need any more prompting than that. He sprinted outside the room and found the boy where Happy had left him, out cold, shivering and sweaty, small traces of vomit on his lips. He too gently tapped the boy’s cheeks in an effort to wake him.

“But he looked fine earlier, what happened?”

“I don’t know but he was quiet on the way up here. He looked pale and a bit sweaty. I put it down to nerves seeing you. You know, after what happened with the ferry…He said he might have eaten something bad.”

Tony felt the boy’s forehead. “He’s burning up. We need to get him to the Medbay.” He scooped Peter up in his arms and made his way to the elevator. “Happy, can you go into the conference and tell Pepper quietly and then wrap it up. No one needs to know why.”

Happy obliged. 

“FRIDAY, call in the medical team, tell them it’s an emergency.”

“Sure thing, boss. They should be on duty within the hour.”

Tony wasn’t sure what to do for the next hour until they came but he laid Peter out on one of the gurneys and tried to make the kid comfortable. He held his hand, tried to give him water, put a cold cloth on his head and stroked his hair and talked to him gently, in the hope a softly-softly approach would do the trick. All he got in return was feverish mumblings, no improvement in his condition, and a greater sense of worry.

After what felt like the longest 60 minutes of his life, broken only by the arrival of Pepper and Happy, the med team arrived. He filled them in on what little he knew and they got to work, taking his temperature (105), his pulse (too fast) and then, as they took his jacket off, the source of the issue was revealed, to Tony’s horror.

Through his grey t-shirt, on the left side was a large blood stain. Cutting the t-shirt off revealed a torso covered in fading bruises, two pink scars on his lower abdomen, one pink scar on his top right abdomen, a far deeper bruise still working its way to the surface on his left hip and a poorly bandaged shoulder and collarbone, the bandage mainly sodden in blood and what looked like pus.

The nurse carefully cut the bandage away and revealed the angry puncture wound, clearly infected. Tony stepped back as the medical team did their work. He could see them cleaning the wound, stitching it and hooking the teen up to industrial-strength antibiotics they usually gave to Captain America. 

The head doctor looked up at Peter’s mentor and took him to one side. “He’ll be fine. The wound had some tiny fragments of shrapnel in it so we had to make sure that was all out but now it is it should start healing like the other wounds. Give him a few hours and the fever should break and he’ll be feeling a lot better.”

The tension Tony didn’t know he was holding through his shoulders, suddenly released. Happy audibly sighed in relief. Pepper, holding Tony’s hand, gave it a knowing squeeze.

“Why didn’t he say anything about this?” Tony asked, to no-one.

“He probably thought he could handle it alone, knowing him,” Happy said. “He’s a good kid.”

"He is. Shit, his aunt, we have to let her know he's here. She probably thinks he's still at decathlon practice," Tony said, running his hand through his hair. 

"I'm on it," Happy said, dialling Peter's home line in the hope May was not on shift. 

To his relief, she did pick up. Happy told May the lie that Peter had been called to the compound for some urgent internship business and would be home as soon as it was done. 

"He wasn't well over the weekend, don't over-work him will you?" she said, agitated. 

"Unwell?" Happy questioned. "In what way?" 

"Oh he said he had his drink spiked and fell down the stairs. He was in a right state Saturday morning, and not much better yesterday. I told him not to go to school today but he insisted." 

"He is so stubborn sometimes," Happy said with a smile. "Ok, we'll make sure he's alright, if he gets unwell again we'll set him up with a guest room here for the night. We do actually have some doctors here so it might be worth him getting checked out - especially if he's fallen down the stairs, as you say." Happy didn't like lying. 

"That'd be good. Would save me a medical bill too. Thanks Mr Hogan. Keep me posted, won't you?" 

"Sure thing, speak later." 

And so the illusion was maintained. Tony took a seat, unwilling to leave Peter alone as he recovered, while Pepper reluctantly departed, as she had an important business meeting to attend in LA. Happy sat with his boss. The two men talked quietly over the boy, about him - about his patrolling reports and his need to impress, the ferry incident and what could have possibly happened with the whole plane business - where those puncture wounds had even come from, how he maintained his big secret. It was a lot for even adult shoulders to bear, let alone a 15-year-olds.

Eventually, Spider-Man stirred.

“Wha….” he said, reaching up to the nasal cannula giving him oxygen. “MsrSt’k”

“Hey kid, leave that there,” he said, pulling the boy’s hand back down to his side. “You’re OK, you’re in the medbay with me and with Happy.”

Peter scrunched his face in confusion. “What happened?” he asked slugglishly.

“Well I was hoping you could tell me that. Happy’s heart isn’t strong enough to see you unconscious in the back seat of his car, I’ve seen his cardiogram.” 

“Sorry,” was all Peter could say in response.

“It’s OK kid, no need to apologise,” Happy said with an affection he’d not directed to Peter before. “You’re going to be fine and that’s all that matters.”

It took a while for Peter to fully come to, the painkillers and antibiotics coursing through his system making him sluggish and slurred. 

“You wanna know what happened,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“If you can, that’d be great kid,” Tony said quietly in response. 

“Too loud…too bright,” Peter winced. "May... what about May?"

“May is fine, she's at home, she knows you're here on internship business —" he said making quote marks with his fingers. "Let's sort that light and sound for you." Tony tapped his watch a few times and instantly, everything inside the space went silent and the lights dimmed to 10%. Tony watched the boy visibly relax. "There you go. Better?"

“Thanks,” Peter said breathlessly. "So, uh, lemme tell you what happened. It's...uh.... it's a lot." Slowly, he did his best to tell the story of what happened at Homecoming, about Liz’s dad, the warehouse, the plane…

Tony and Happy patiently listened, waiting for Peter’s to gather his strength to recount each of the catastrophic things that happened that night. He kept asking the boy if he wanted to continue, and he nodded, insisting he finish admitting all his actions despite the effort it was clearly taking. 

They were, by the end, dumbfounded. How the kid had even survived the events of the night stunned them, let alone the fact he managed to prevent a massive disaster with the crashing plane AND managed to capture the Vulture, as Peter had dubbed him. 

“...but then... his wing-suit exploded and…I went in...and got him,” Peter concluded, half asleep. “I had to... sort it all out... make it right.”

“You sure did that Underoos,” Tony said. “Why didn’t you call?”

“Ned tried…to get Happy...Happy cut him off.”

Tony shot Happy a look that could have killed. 

“But that was… that was before the warehouse...I lost contact with everyone... I didn’t have my phone...or a tracker.” 

The guilt in the room was so thick you could cut it. Happy hung his head in shame at not giving Ned air time, Tony rubbed his face with his hands in the realisation that taking the suit from him was NOT the perfect tough-love moment. It had put Peter’s life at risk.

“M’sorry Mr Stark,” Peter said, teary-eyed. 

“You? Sorry? Peter, it’s us who should apologise,” Tony said. “None of this should have happened, if Happy had listened, if I hadn’t taken your suit - you wouldn’t be here now.”

“S’ok,” Peter said, nodding off. “Won’t happen again.”

“You’re damn right it won’t. Sleep Pete, we’ll talk again later.”

It took no time at all for Peter to fall into a deep sleep, free from the weight of carrying what had happened. 

Tony took the time to call May shortly after, explaining that her nephew was fine but just very tired, that he'd fallen asleep in the lab room and that he'd be staying over and taken to school the following day. May wasn't best pleased - she was sceptical of Tony Stark enough as it was, without him exhausting her nephew with internship business that he wasn't even getting paid for. She made him promise not to make a habit of it and Tony gladly agreed. 

By 5am the next morning, Peter was much improved. His fever had broken and his wounds had all but healed although the broken ribs still had a way to go. He relished the softness of the bed and how it could electronically sit up, saving the pain of having to do it himself.

First to come through the door was one of the nurses on duty from the night before, taking obs and leaving with a smile. “You should be able to go home today,” she said. “Just get these cleared and your blood tested and you’ll be good to go.”

Next was Tony Stark.

“Morning sunshine!” he said, coffee in hand. “You look a lot better. You had us worried there.”  


“I feel fine now Mr Stark, I’m sorry for inconveniencing you. Nurse says I can go soon and I...uh really should be getting back to school.”

“Well I did tell your hot Aunt that we'd take you in. You sure you feel up to it? There's a team lunch later if you wanna join?”

“But I turned down the team? Anyway, are you encouraging truancy Mr Stark?”

“No matter, you don’t have to be an Avenger to have lunch with us you know. Come on, it’s about time they met you properly anyway. And yes, yes I am encouraging truancy. Listen I'll call May, call the school, tell them you have the flu or something. No biggie.”

“Hmmm... I guess so. I don't like skipping school. But...a team lunch does sound nice.”

Two hours later, and fully healed, Peter had his first Shawerma. With the Avengers. And it really WAS nice.


End file.
